This four-part series on “The Military Present” features interviews with scholars of war and militarism that explore how our present is shaped by the technologies, logics, histories, and economy of war. Episode 3 features an interview with Wazhmah Osman, filmmaker and professor of Media Studies and Production. Building on discussions with scholars Joe Masco (Episode 1) and Madiha Tahir (Episode 2) about the uneven distributions of war’s material effects and visibility, the interview with Wazhmah Osman in Episode 3 focuses on the United States’ dropping of the Massive Ordnance Air Blast (MOAB) in Afghanistan in April of 2017. The MOAB is the largest and most powerful non-nuclear weapon ever used. The final episode of this special series will feature an interview with physician and anthropologist Omar Dewachi in which he discusses war, wounding, and the production of ungovernable life in Iraq. Each of the episodes in this special series ask anthropologists (or scholars in related disciplines/trained as anthropologists) to engage with pressing issues of our present. Our hope is that the episodes will be of interest to anyone concerned with US militarized violence, domestically and internationally, and that they will contribute to public scholarship. Full episode transcript.

Image Caption: A picture of Wazhmah as part of a US diplomatic mission in Afghanistan.

Wazhmah Osman spoke on Democracy Now about the MOAB immediately after it was dropped by the United States, which . For a full transcript of this episode, please follow this link: http://www.americananthropologist.org/the-military-present-episode-3-transcript/ 

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